Gran Turismo 5: New Free Updates, DLC, and Price Drop

If you have been keeping up with GT5, you know Polyphony Digital has been very diligent about releasing free updates to improve the game, especially the online racing mode. Ever since the launch, Kazunori Yamauchi and his team have been carefully studying posts on forums, reading comments on PlayStation.Blog posts and across Twitter, talking to fans at events, and more. The game has evolved a lot since last November, thanks in part to the dedicated GT fans voicing their opinions.

Now I’m here to share with you some very exciting news about the biggest FREE update yet, releasing in the next few weeks. It will add new features and even more functionality to your GT5 experience.

Polyphony learned that a lot of fans out there love driving using the game’s interior view, and has given some serious thought to it. With this new update, all cars in the game will now have interior views. Although the level of visual details will vary based on what car you choose, you can now race from behind the wheel of any car in the game. In addition, you’ll be able to get the 2011 season versions of the 11 NASCAR race cars for the first time.

Some of the other improvements introduced are greatly reduced load times when loading races, quicker menu response times, and adjustable opponent AI in Arcade Mode. Players will now have the option to save their progress during lengthy racing events so they can come back and finish at a later time, and can also adjust weather conditions for races using a slider function that goes from mild to severe.

The wildly popular Photo Mode has been updated to allow players to take pictures with their personalized driver avatars with customizable racing suits and helmets. You can even fast-forward and rewind race replays now to better capture that key moment in the race.

For those who enjoy racing online with your fellow gearheads, we’re expanding the shuffle race mode. As with the same feature in Gran Turismo PSP, this allows friendly competition between players of different skill levels. Players setting up online races will also have a host of new regulations available to customize their own events. New bonus incentives are introduced for players who log in and play on a consistent basis.

The final piece of big news is that there will be a full batch of downloadable content for Gran Turismo 5 in the coming weeks. This DLC will of course include new vehicles and tracks, plus some additional surprises.

We’ll have more details very soon on the specifics of the DLC, so stay tuned, and check the blog and the official Gran Turismo website for further details.

I am ending this post with a comment from the man himself, Kazunori Yamauchi, president of Polyphony Digital and creator of the Gran Turismo franchise:

The coming Gran Turismo 5 Spec 2 update is an update that contains the feedback from the users playing GT5 online every day. We have added cars such as the newest NASCAR race cars, but many of the updates are those that improve usability and expand the field of game play. I believed from the initial release of Gran Turismo 5 that it would be the users that would make the game grow thereafter, and we added things like interior views for the standard models because there was a lot of request for it from our users. You could say that this update is the shape and form of GT5 that was created through the opinions of our fans.

And if you don’t have Gran Turismo 5 yet, now is the perfect time to get into the best-selling racing game. In addition to all of the great new content and free updates, as of this week you can pick GT5 up for only $39.99.

This is how you do it. Take your time, put out a masterpiece like Gran Turismo 5 and support it for years.

You have to wonder why a joke developer like Turn 10 can’t seem to grasp such a simple concept. Instead they rush out the door the junk arcadish GT clones with their horrible graphics and even worse driving model thinking driving fans are going to be dumb enough to buy their garbage Forza games.

update us on the cars and tracks when you get more info on them would love to see more supercars like the konnigsegg family if thats how you spell it lol and more aston martins to! heres what you should do watch the last 3 seasons of top gear and add all the cars you see on there! the bbc version of course!

It feels like Christmas. GT5 is my favorite game on the ps3 and is one of the only games I play for the ps3. Please keep updating this game so I can play it for as long as possible!!!!!!! This is so awesome.

NOW ALL WE NEED IS AN UPDATE TO MODIFY OUR RIDES..WITH BODY KITS AND OTHER STREET LOOK ACCESSORIES. I KNOW THIS IS NOT NFS..BUT ALIL BIT OF MODDING CANT HURT THE GAME..IF ANYTHING IT WILL DRAW IN MORE FANS ;)

@RE_Player: The 3D in GT5 is fantastic! Particularly when using the interior view.

Thank you Polyphony Digital! This update looks fantastic and gives me even more cars to use while running my 3DTV. Plus finally mid saves for Endurance races? WIN! Can’t wait to see details of the DLC coming.

Game was a big disappointment and this is reflected in the 84 Metacritic score. As the flagship racing game on PS3 it should be a premium quality 90+ rated game like the Forza series. Good they are updating the game but all of this should have been in the game when we bought it. The standard cars and PS2 tracks were just plain bad. This is what happens when you don’t have a community manager and only start listening to your fans when they are complaining how crap things in your game are.

Any word on if it will be possible to have Standard Cars bought in showrooms? It is very tedious to wait around for the right car to buy, I’d much rather pick it up from a showroom instead.

Will there be support for Standard Cars in Photo Mode? I have a Gold Chrome Veyron that I’ve been dying to take a picture of in Kyoto.

When will we get support for interior view in 2P Battle? There’s only 2 camera views currently.

Also, there’s a really bad problem with smoke and rain: Whenever you’re driving in the rain (doesn’t matter if Standard or Premium car), you can see enormous pixels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXn4A1zuy14 see, around the headlights you can see very jagged edges and big pixels. Will this be fixed?

I have one last question (all though this is more of an idea): will there be a place where we can buy any kind of color of paint? I hate having to buy millions of Go Karts just to get a certain kind of color (when your garage gets to 150, 180, etc., you get a different paint chip) and I’d like to just pay a certain amount of money for a color instead of having to buy certain cars again or try my luck with a race.

I just want to take the time to say THANK YOU! I’ve been a long time fan of the series, and for this release had purchased the Sig Ed. and the Playstation branded T500rs, and will soon be getting the shifter. One of the things I’ve always wanted was interior view for all the car…but something more as well: NO steering wheel AND arms IN the cockpit view. I use a dedicated cockpit setup, and seeing “double” my real life arms and steering wheel PLUS the ones on the screen, really was…well wrong. From seeing one the images released, I’m officially in heaven.

It still would be nice to have livery editor, but not for the reason that people scream against it usually with the word “ricer” somewhere in the sentence. When you have a dedicated online racing team, going against other teams, it would be REALLy REALLY nice to have some sort of differentiation on the race track: hence that what this would be for.

Thank you Sony and PD, keep up the great work, and you bet I’ll be getting that DLC!!!!!

I’m now officially going back to Gran Turismo 5. A lot of the things that the Spec 2 update is fixing, are things that made me lose interest in the simulator. Now if only I could afford a Thrustmaster T500 RS, then my dreams of professional racing could hit GT Academy.

Its barely finished because: Most of the cars are standard cars which looks beyond ughly, the only reason they included such cars so that can brag about 1000+ cars or something. I rather have 400 premium cars than 800+ standard cars. Also various visual glitches like show flickering and bad aliasing during smoke or rain makes the game look so ughly.

Great news on the updates. Is there going to be more North American tracks? Any chance of getting cars from the ALMS? I know the serise has a deal with Forza 4 (how did that happen anyway) but you need to get som of those cars in the game. Keep the updates coming.

#22 mattsa001 can’t drive the Sim!! Don’t be mad mattsa001 we forgive you! Now when u get a ps3 come tell us again!!

Ok now, there are batters here today and we know those b the drivers going backwards and wrecking out a 30 lap race in the first STRAIGHTAWAY lol

THIS UPDATE 2.0 Rocks and I cannot wait for it to be released, I drive interior so this helps me greatly to set up my standard cars suspension for I couldn’t feel the YAW the same from on top the cars.

IM BUYING EVERY DLC!! cars/tracks and whatever the surprise!

Thanks Kaz San and The Whold Polyphony Team!!

I’d love air pressures adjustabilities and fender flare but this rocks!!

Please include a quarter mile drag strip, that would make this game the ultimate!!! Also more american cars like the 2003 Ford Mustang Cobra, the 2000 Pontiac Trans Am WS6 Ram Air, and a more classic American muscle cars.

Are they going to add support for the G27 wheel?? The game is unplayable on my G27, the force feedback is insane and would damage my wheel. Updates don’t matter one bit to me unless you add support for one of the most popular wheels out there.

Can’t please everyone, big update coming and some people can’t help but find fault in it. Get a life! Seriously! Why come on here to complain? Incessant complaining gets you nowhere, but I guess it helps you sleep at night, whatever guy, enjoy your crummy life as it must be to for you to be negative about things that they are working at changing because of the community.

Anyway I see this as a plus as I play GT5 everyday with two accounts, and interior views will make me a happy camper, although I dread seeing the standard Veyron from inside, lol. I really hope that they revamped GT Auto and put all exterior and interior tuning parts in one place, streamline to shopping process as well so we can buy things en masse. Also show the mileage on cars when you go to change your oil and always display the last mileage you got an oil change. Selectable HUD display based on driver preference(would be a godsend). Also when in exterior car view when we use the look around button, the camera should pan around the car a la Forza, not jump to a side view, that’s pointless as you are already outside the car.